Tag: upcycling in Dubai

Upcycling cans is such creative fun. However alittle caution while cutting the cans is necessary.

I have made 8 different designs out of the cans. Ofcourse, there are many more designs which can be created but for now, I am pleased with these designs.

Very straight forward ~ just cut the cans and snipe the ends to leave a pointed end. I masked the end with a little tape and spray painted the rest. After it dried (which is relatively soon). I peeled the tape and here’s what it looks like.I’ve cut thinner stripes here. Once cut and spread on a flat surface. I folded the stripes inwards in half. Its quite simple but has a lovely effect. Then I spray painted it.This one is probably the easiest. I cut the stripes wider and then spread it on a flat surface. Then I masked tape at two random measurements and spray painted it. when dried, I had the tapes removed to leave me with this lovely effect.This probably looks abit complicated but its really quite easy. Like the rest, I cut thinner stripes and instead of folding it inward, I had them fold inward horizontally and hide behind the alternate stripe. kept continuing till all of them were folded and then spray painted it.This one is slightly tricky. Cut 1/3 of the can ~ all except two stripes on the sides. Attach those stripes on the top with a stapler and spray paint the can.Here I have just curled the stripes slightly down wards to give it a spider effect.Using the end of a paint brush, roll the stripes inward and voila ! Spray paint.Around 1 cm from the bottom of the can, make straight cuts toward the top. continue to do so. Once you have cut enough stripes, just squeeze the can gently to form the lantern shape. Give a gentle pull to help get the stripes out. Spray paint.The tab of the drink can be used to hang it from a branch or a stand.

Dressing up mundane objects with a little color, some craft paper, few embellishments and alittle TLC gives me a lot of creative satisfaction. Ordinarily we tend to throw a lot of packing material, pieces of fabric, and even things that can be easily recycled. But not me 🙂 A large part of the “junk” is cleaned/washed and stored for future projects and ideas. {and then hubby and I quarrel about the amount of “junk” being stacked up in the shed !! ~ sounds familiar ?}

Jokes apart ~ Its one of those things that I so wish to educate kids about. A little change can go a long way in saving the state Mother Earth is in 😦

This project is totally, an upcycle freak’s dream ~ Everything is recycled in this project ! I made this board a couple of days back when felt the need of an organizational board to keep track of some of the engagements, meals, doctors appointments and reminders for the week ahead.

I didn’t need something fancy ~ just something simple and reliable. I dived into my backyard wood stock and came across this thin sheet of cork wood. It seemed to be perfect. Alittle sanding here and there and it was ready for being dressed.

I’ve always been a sucker for polka dots and I had just the perfect, bright and happy design paper for the background.

I needed a couple of containers to hold pencils, pins, rubberbands etc ~ I reused milk cartons and some laban cartons to do the job.

With a little spray paint ~ they really perked up. For a more aesthetic look, I added some scraps of the polka dot cardstock and finished off the look with a few tiny clothespin. Has made an immense difference, isn’t it ??

Next a few clothespin were modge podged with co-ordinating stripes pattern.

I also placed one old cork coaster for pinning school circulars or reminders.

I had this title printed off my printer with some fancy font and layered it over a nice textured bright orange handmade paper.

Assembling the whole board was really quite easy. Naturally the title went on top while the rest just fell into the place that could leave enough space to pin things, clip things and hold stuff in the containers. They were all modge podged ( the word is a verb too !!! ) except for the cork coaster and the milk cartons. For those, I decided to use E6000.

Btw ~ do you know that you do get the duplicate of E6000 ? Trust ‘reliable’ China to come up with ANYTHING duplicate. Its E600 and the tube looks almost exactly similar to the original.

Once everything had dried ~ I modge podged over the board along with everything (embellishments ) again. That gave it a really nice and more professional finish.

And Voila !!!! Two holes were made on the top of the board {goof up :- those holes would look a lot better and less chipped, had I drilled them instead of hammering them } so as to hang it with a cord.

This project took nearly 2 – 3 hours including drying time. And all the materials are recycled so you don’t really have to buy any of the tools or materials. Its readily available in almost all homes.

Do you have an organization board at home ? Would you like to share the picture with me ?

Two weeks back, I participated in one of these creative group challenges on facebook. They asked to work on some form of altered art on a shadow box. Naturally everyone participating, rushed to Ikea to pick shadow boxes worth dhs 30 ! Frugal me instead, decided to improvise. We have a tradition in our home of having a pizza party every Friday afternoon. My husband loves to pamper the boys on the one day he is at home with us. ( That minus the almost 5 other days, we have a meal out !)

Since Pizza Hut’s meal for four has two medium size boxes, I generally don’t dispose those boxes after the meal. They get stacked up in my new white cupboard which stocks all “recycleable ” stuff like cat food tins/cans, pringle tubes, empty toilet rolls and what have you ! You get the idea, don’t you !! Yes, very few things find their way into the bin in this house 🙂 I suppose, Dubai Muncipality should be appreciating my efforts to keep a recycling center right IN my house !! 🙂

Anyways, back to the story :- So naturally I turn to the pizza box and try to envision the transformation !! Strangely, its really not so difficult to make at all !

Here’s the process :-

I measured a large square on the back or base of the box { it is more sturdy since it gets additional support from the three adjoining sides } almost 1 inch away from the edge on all four sides. Make a crease on that line so that cutting thru it will be easier. Then cut thru the measured square on all four sides with a sharp blade. I used my steel ruler/scale to give me direction and support. BTW, this particular project did not use a pizza hut box instead it is of another pizza company.

Once the face/base of the box was cut off, I then measured a large 12 x 12 scrapbooking paper as per the dimensions of the inside of the box. Applied some white glue to the paper and adhered it to the box inside.

This is the stage where the box is now ready for all the decoration to drop on it. Let the designing begin !

Since I had a rough idea of how I wanted it to look, I divided the box into four parts. The top being the largest while the below had three nearly equal parts. It was divided by a black polka dot ribbon on top and black thin left-over cardstock. Strangely enough, this is the part that took the longest and I made a couple of goof ups here !!

I had planned to keep the theme romantic, hence I distressed some blue wooden alphabets spelling “Love” and glued them haphazardly on the top half of the box. Later I cut three heart shapes out of a story book paper and gently glued them together in the center. I then glued the hearts on the boxes in the below part. I repeated this process twice for the other two parts as well.

I made spiral flowers out of some left over papers and adhered them with hot glue towards the top right side of the “love sign” and the bottom left side too. Some small flowers were also glued for an added effect.

For the frame look of the shadow box. I measured and cut four stripes of patterned paper and attached it to the “frame” !

It took less than an 1 1/2 hour to finish this entire project and apart from the wooden alphabets, I am sure, everyone carries almost all of the said items in their homes !

So ? What’d you think ? I really hope, I have inspired some one out there. to try out something similar !!

Please feel free to tell me how you liked my ‘ pizza box turned shadow box’ . Oh yeah, my creativity and thinking out of the box, did cost me !! Sadly, the challenge was for a shadow box and they disapproved the transformation of the pizza box to the shadow box !!! They decided they did not want to accept anything less than a prim and proper shadow box !!

So I licked my wounds and then licked some more, for a couple of days and later, pushed my disappointments into making a whole lot of more pizza boxes into shadow boxes ! !! Folks, that’s Naush for you !!! Down but not for long :)))

Frankly, I had a lot of fun, visualizing, then designing, then goofing up, then re-designing, and then actually improving and making it work for me !! Challenge or not ~ competition or not ~ I am happy with my little project. How about you ?

Have you ever been let down by some silly rule of any challenge after making a real effort to participate ? I mean, everyone is always talking about thinking out of the box these days, well I literally did think “out of the box” and guess where it got me !!! 🙂

Have a beautiful day friends and thank you so much for visiting me today.

I am linking this project with the following parties, I hope you can visit them too and share some of your own creative projects.

Thank you all very much for the lovely comments you guys left for my previous project. I’m so glad you guys liked the “Bake, Eat, love” placard.

Last Thursday, when I was returning from the hospital, I picked up some Mini Pizza’s from one of the pizza shops, close to the hospital. That I managed to eat one entire pizza all by myself is not what this post is all about 🙂 !!!! But about the destiny of that pizza box. Becoz it was in such a good condition, I just could’nt let it go to waste, now could I ?

So any ways, I needed an appealing box to carry the 2 cards, and the table calender gift that Buddy has made for his teacher, Mrs Barker. This box is an ideal container for to serve that purpose. I have covered it in pieces and decorated it, in and out. Love the rich swirly red with gold dp. Here are some of the elements used :

Embossed

Die cut nestabilities

4 blue brads

layered with a check background dp.

Die cut alphabets

Large Felt flowers.(3flowers) and a diecut flower too.

Distressing especially the edges of the box.

Altering this box took just a couple of hours, becoz I did not have all the colors figured out initially, but I really had fun putting it all together.

Hope you like it too. Taddaa, here it is .. . …. … … .. …

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And Here are the many challenges, this pizza box is entering :

AiFactory – 1E, SIO – Use something new (recycling pizza box for the first time )

Naush Samama

Welcome to my blog

So glad your here. My name is Naush & this is where I showcase my creative chaos

I am an eco-friendly visual artist and upcycle crafter, better known for the use of unconventional materials in my artwork, including the use of wire, wood, cardboard, cement, fabric, plastic and paper. I live in Dubai with my husband, three teenage sons and nine cats, all of whom will vouch for my messy craft room and nocturnal life. I thrive on coffee and crafts and I am a self-confessed borderline craft-supplies-hoarder who believes that a little creativity with some paint and a glue gun can do wonders with any mundane object.